“A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the
voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the rst intimation he had of his approach.
“Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!”
“Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure?”
“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.”
“Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.”
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” again; and followed it up with “Humbug.”
Don’t be cross, uncle!” said the nephew.
“What else can I be,” returned the uncle, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for nding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”
“Uncle!” pleaded the nephew.
“Nephew!” returned the uncle sternly, “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”

]]>http://blog.speakuponline.it/?feed=rss2&p=55520THE BEST OF THE BLOG – FIRST WORLD WARhttp://blog.speakuponline.it/?p=5544
http://blog.speakuponline.it/?p=5544#commentsTue, 18 Dec 2018 09:00:38 +0000http://blog.speakuponline.it/?p=5544FIRST WORLD WARDear Speak Up,in the November issue of Speak Up, in the article “Letter from Buckingham Palace”, Geoffrey Howe writes: “(…) I asked Her Majesty to remember Britain’s former enemies too, and to put flowers on the graves of Italian and German victims from both world wars.” Could you please tell Mr. Howe that Italians were not Britain’s enemies in the First World War?Best regards, Italo

Dear Italo,
That’s true. Before WWI, Italy was allied with the German, and the Austria-Hungary Empires, but in 1914 declared neutrality. In 1915, Italy signed a treaty with Britain, France and Russia. Geoffrey’s point is that Italy’s involvement in both wars caused terrible suffering and that this should be recognised irrelative of which side the soldiers fought on. Speak Up